On Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 11:36:55PM +0200, Timon Gehr via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 08/01/2014 11:25 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> >>Great. Now imagine you are a motorhead in a hospital.
> >I have no trouble distinguishing between these two meanings of "sick" within the same conversation. You just have to resolve your overload sets correctly.:-D
> 
> The reason I was bringing this up was indeed that the current thread could be somewhat aptly summarized as one involving a motorhead who is trying to persuade a doctor that his patient is not actually sick, and that indeed, such a claim is completely meaningless; hence no medicine should be administered.

To me, this thread can be summarized by n parties sharing code in a "common" language but it's actually not a common language because each party has their own incompatible definitions of all the keywords.


T

-- 
Stop staring at me like that! It's offens... no, you'll hurt your eyes!

On 08/01/2014 11:40 PM, Chris Cain wrote:
> On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 21:29:48 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage
> ...

ingredient in dishes such as stews and casseroles
                                        ^~~~~
Almost.

> ...
>
> Sorry, I don't know what you meant by that. :-)

You will notice it uses the word 'assertion' in a way that is incompatible with your claim that the "assert definition" rules out such an usage.

On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 22:01:01 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> You will notice it uses the word 'assertion' in a way that is incompatible with your claim that the "assert definition" rules out such an usage.

How so? It's an article on evidence. All it seems to suggest is that evidence can be used to back up assertions, not that all assertions must be backed up by evidence. Assertions are a statement of fact or belief and can be backed up with evidence. No incompatibility there.

Am 02.08.2014 00:01, schrieb Timon Gehr:
> On 08/01/2014 11:40 PM, Chris Cain wrote:
>> On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 21:29:48 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage
>> ...
>
> ingredient in dishes such as stews and casseroles
>                                          ^~~~~
> Almost.
>
>> ...
>>
>> Sorry, I don't know what you meant by that. :-)
>
> You will notice it uses the word 'assertion' in a way that is
> incompatible with your claim that the "assert definition" rules out such
> an usage.

Yeah, it seems like assertion doesn't *have* to mean something like "promise", but can also be used in the sense of "claim" or "thesis", which is much weaker.

Cheers,
Daniel

On 08/01/2014 11:45 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 11:36:55PM +0200, Timon Gehr via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On 08/01/2014 11:25 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>>> Great. Now imagine you are a motorhead in a hospital.
>>> I have no trouble distinguishing between these two meanings of "sick"
>>> within the same conversation. You just have to resolve your overload
>>> sets correctly.:-D
>>
>> The reason I was bringing this up was indeed that the current thread
>> could be somewhat aptly summarized as one involving a motorhead who is
>> trying to persuade a doctor that his patient is not actually sick, and
>> that indeed, such a claim is completely meaningless; hence no medicine
>> should be administered.
>
> To me, this thread can be summarized by n parties sharing code in a
> "common" language but it's actually not a common language because each
> party has their own incompatible definitions of all the keywords.
>
>
> T
>

Some of the parties have stated this at the moment they entered the discussion and were successfully ignored by some of the other parties who kept asserting that their own definitions were the only sane ones and anything else does not deserve to be discussed.

On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 22:05:04 UTC, Daniel Gibson wrote:
> Yeah, it seems like assertion doesn't *have* to mean something like "promise"

I'd argue that it never really means "promise." It's a simple statement. In the sense of programming stating something that is incorrect will cause erroneous behavior, so you should be sure of your statements. In a sense, you "promise" your statements are correct otherwise you understand bugs will occur, but the assert itself isn't the promise you're making.

On 08/02/2014 12:03 AM, Chris Cain wrote:
> On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 22:01:01 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>> You will notice it uses the word 'assertion' in a way that is
>> incompatible with your claim that the "assert definition" rules out
>> such an usage.
>
> How so? It's an article on evidence. All it seems to suggest is that
> evidence can be used to back up assertions, not that all assertions must
> be backed up by evidence. Assertions are a statement of fact or belief
> and can be backed up with evidence. No incompatibility there.

"contradictory assertions"

"To what degree of certitude must the assertion be supported?"

etc.

I'll not go into more details because I actually intend not to participate again in heated debate after already having shown strong evidence.

On 08/02/2014 12:07 AM, Chris Cain wrote:
> On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 22:05:04 UTC, Daniel Gibson wrote:
>> Yeah, it seems like assertion doesn't *have* to mean something like
>> "promise"
>
> I'd argue that it never really means "promise." ...In a
> sense, you "promise" your statements are correct ...

On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 22:17:15 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> "contradictory assertions"
>
> "To what degree of certitude must the assertion be supported?"
>
> etc.
>
> I'll not go into more details because I actually intend not to participate again in heated debate after already having shown strong evidence.

Frankly, I don't understand the point you're trying to make, so it's not really possible to rebut it.

If your point is that assertions need to have evidence to be assertions, an easy counterproof of this is in your own quote: "To what degree of certitude must the assertion be supported?" ... It wouldn't have been called an assertion in that sentence unless it's something that is sure that it had been supported sufficiently (it would have been worded more along the lines of "To what degree of certitude must the assertion *candidate* be supported?")

I think it's clear that the definition of assertion being "statement of fact or belief" is compatible with the usage in that wikipedia article.

In particular, "contradictory 'statements of fact'" and "To what degree of certitude must the 'statements of fact' be supported?" you suggested as examples of incompatibility actually make perfect sense.

On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 22:20:02 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 08/02/2014 12:07 AM, Chris Cain wrote:
>> On Friday, 1 August 2014 at 22:05:04 UTC, Daniel Gibson wrote:
>>> Yeah, it seems like assertion doesn't *have* to mean something like
>>> "promise"
>>
>> I'd argue that it never really means "promise." ...In a
>> sense, you "promise" your statements are correct ...

The promise is that your statements are correct, not that your assertions are the embodiment of the promise itself. I can't make that more clear and it seems abundantly obvious to me what is meant by that.